Academic research in WoW - please join us! (and get a game card)
 

Hi everyone,

I used EQInterface back in the day, and I wanted to offer up an opportunity to earn a 30-day game card as a ‘thank you’ for participating in a study in World of Warcraft.

I'm a student at Colorado State, and I'm interning with a team studying communication and behavior in online games. We're looking for WoW players to spend about 90 minutes playing a custom-built quest chain (via an add on) in WoW and to take a survey before and after. When you finish, you'll get the game card.

Here are the basics:

• You'll download an add-on that conforms to all ToS/EULA requirements, available on Curse!
• You'll create a new level 1 toon, which we'll port to Dalaran
• You'll spend some time completing a series of quests with a group of 2-3 other players.
• You'll have a great time.

By the way, this project isn’t associated with Blizzard in any way – we’re academic researchers doing an independent study. As per their general policies, Blizzard does not endorse private projects like this.

Want more info?

Here’s the info and sign-up page:
http://scribes.colostate.edu/

Here’s more about the add-on:
http://scribes.colostate.edu/addons.html

Here is a list of the team. This research is my job (yes, I’m paid to play WoW), and we publish papers on what we learn, which you can find by clicking the hyperlinked names:
http://scribes.colostate.edu/aboutResearchers.html

And here is the academia.edu profile of Dr. Rosa Mikeal Martey, the lead researcher on this project:
http://colostate.academia.edu/RosaMikealMartey/Papers

There you can find some of the papers that have been written on this federally funded grant, several of which are from the first part of this project, which we did in Second Life.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to comment on this message and I'll get back to you.

Otherwise, we hope to see you in game!

I couldn't find a straight link to the AddOn on your site, so I might as well post it here to make things easier

http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/marauder

(Off-topic, but I peeked into the code, and just want to tell Mr. Lovaas that the AddOn is leaking quite a bit of global variables..)

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To the OP:

The project sounds interesting. Unfortunately, I probably do not have time to participate unless it's happening at night, or on a Sunday.

Phanx, Thanks for clarifying some of that information for me.

In response to your time concerns, we have a very broad range of time slots, and we'll schedule you based on your availability. We often have sessions as late at 11pm EST. And we conduct them almost every day of the week, Sunday included.

If I can answer anything else for anyone, please feel free to ask :)

Holy.... that's a lot of global variables... :eek:

If the addon ever breaks, this would be the first place to look. If Mr. Lovaas ever wishes to fix the addon up and optimize it, he should come to the developer forums here or visit our #wowuidev IRC channel.

As late as 11pm huh... Just a note here but we're talking about gamers, 11pm is morning to many of us :D And many of us raid late starting around 8 and going until midnight in many cases.

As far as I know, there is no such thing as a 30 day game card. Blizzard only sells 60 day game cards. The only way to gift game time in 30 day increments is to purchase key codes in the Blizzard Store.

Petrah: This is why I've added so many links, including the academia.edu link, where you can see some of the papers written in the second life portion of this study. It's to qualm any legitimacy questions. We're aware that scams often plague WoW players.

Othgar: LOL. We do understand that many of you are on different schedules. This is why we also have sessions as early as (or "as late as," I suppose :p) 11am EST.

Talyrius: Blizzard does not sell a 30-day game card in stores, however they do sell them online. We purchase them there and send you the code within a week after you complete our study.

Any other issues I can address? :)

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Thank you. It is much appreciated. If I did have the time for something like this, I would probably call the university and speak to them directly about your program.

I sent you a PM with my availability.


<snip - moved to new thread>

took a look at your site and wife grinning behind me had me throw my name into the hat so to speak :) hope your study goes well.

Let's try to keep this thread on topic shall we, security is a legitimate concern but if you want to go into the details then do it in a dedicated topic. :)

OP; Best of luck with your project.

None of the posts are deleted, they've all been moved to a new thread. -- that way -->

If you want to keep having that discussion, you are welcome to do so. However, keep in mind our site rules and keep it civilized. And keep it in that thread, not this one.

shawksly - here's your thread back. ;)